Now that the Senate has passed the rise in the debt ceiling, and the liberals and left wing are yelling about betrayal and capitulation of the Obama administration to the Tea Party, why are so many Tea Party representatives and conservative talk show hosts so unhappy?

Driving back home from DC today, I listened to both Glenn Beck and some of Rush Limbaugh, and caught Beck’s interview with Senator Rand Paul as well. Essentially, the theme of the day was that the final agreement would put the nation into further debt, erode the strength of the dollar, eventually lead to increased taxes, and, all in all, produce a debacle greater than that which would have happened had our nation gone into actual default.

From the perspective of the Tea Party hardcore, it seems, any agreement or compromise such as that finalized at the 11th hour is nothing but a betrayal of principle and, as Beck kept saying, “playing the game” instead of standing firm and proud.

If that is the case, why is the Left united in its scathing denunciation of the president for totally capitulating to the Tea Party, and why is it dreading a decade long conservative ascendance in American politics? As Stephen Moore points out in today’s Wall Street Journal:

CNN called the package “a real victory for the tea party,” and that is what has left-wing groups irate. The AFL-CIO and other pro-spending groups had insisted that tax hikes on oil companies and wealthy individuals be part of any compromise. The final deal has no tax increases, though it would allow for new revenues through tax reform.

Columnist Joe Nocera, writing in today’s New York Times, a bellwether for leftist opinion, calls the Tea Party members the equivalent of “terrorists,” who “have waged jihad on the American people.” Jihad? Is he kidding? To raise legitimate questions about the quagmire our nation is falling into by spending more than it has is evidently something that cannot be allowed. If only everyone read only his paper and they had the power to close down Fox News, then Nocera would be happy. But in his eyes, those who tell the truth about the fragile nature of our economy are the ones who want to destroy the nation and, as he writes, had the goal of destroying our nation’s credit and saw “their goal, …[as] worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.”

Of course, Nocera and his op-ed colleague Paul Krugman continually sing the same song: the problem is unemployment, which can only be cured by more, not less, government spending. In their eyes, the problem was not the failed stimulus, but only that the stimulus was too small and the country would have been saved had it been much, much larger.

What really bothers Nocera and others, as Rich Lowry writes, is: “That a Washington with a Democratic Senate and president has to go through the exercise of at least appearing to cut $2.1 trillion from the deficit with no guaranteed tax increases is a humiliating reversal for Keynes’s self-appointed heirs.” Hence, the pronouncement of the liberal Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who noted that the agreement is “the final interment of John Maynard Keynes.”

Yes, the entitlement state has not come to an end. The special committee the deal created could eventually recommend increased taxes. But to any sane observer, American politics and the culture have moved more in a conservative direction, and the committee could also explore where further cuts in spending can be made. So Lowry concludes that “the nation’s debate has fundamentally shifted onto the ground of what kinds of spending to cut, and how fast and far. Keynes would be appalled, but as even Dick Durbin realizes, he’s dead and gone.”

That is why the Left is so angry, despite any limitations some in the Tea Party point to. Look at the rather hysterical rant of the left-wing columnist Michael Tomasky. He admits that his early belief after Obama’s 2008 victory that America would now move left has been dashed. Indeed, he writes, the opposite has happened: “It now seems plausible that Obama is ushering in a conservative era….[by] simply handing the Republicans the keys to the house and saying, ‘Take what you want.’”

Tomasky cries about the curtailment of discretionary spending and looming entitlement cuts; he argues that the economy will not rebound because there will be less government spending (that Keynesianism again) and that worse, if Obama is re-elected he will have to increase the debt limit again and again.

Like Nocera, Tomasky too uses the analogy of terrorists and hostage-takers. Evidently, they got together in a new secret journ-o-list and agreed upon these talking points. He writes that “once you give in to hostage-takers’ demands, you embolden them to try for more next time.”

So I return to my original question. Why are the supporters of Rand Paul and some in the Tea Party so upset? They will undoubtedly respond that they did not get the country back on a sound footing, they did not get all that they wanted, and the current deal has flaws. True enough. But American politics is the art of the possible, and in that political battle, conservatives won and liberals and the left lost.

Now if only everyone would get together and pick a Republican candidate who could actually win against Barack Obama. Liberals fear he is finished and is too much of a weakened president. He might be, but without a strong contender who can unite all those dissatisfied with Obama and, in particular, appeal to the young, educated new generation of Republican voters and college graduates, his defeat is not a sure thing. I fear that in his scathing alphabetical count of every area in which Obama has failed, WSJ columnist Bret Stephens is right in his last observation. He writes:

Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

It’s our job to prove Stephens wrong.

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1.
David Thomson

Conservative Republicans upset with this agreement are merely responding rationally. They are very well ware that our creditors are not being fooled by the politicians unwillingness to severely cut back on government spending. The drop today of the DOW by 265 points indicates their increased displeasure. Rick Perry can easily beat Barack Obama. His campaign slogan will be something like: “Perry=Jobs.”

The bottom line is that the “solution” that was finalized this week, to fix overwhelming national debt and run-away spending, was to add almost unimaginably huge additional debt. All of the shouting and running around was meaningless as compared to this important truth.

It used to take America at least two generations to rack up as much debt as we are now adding each year. Either Obama and other Democrats are intentionally trying to bankrupt the country, or they have lost their flippin’ minds. There are simply no other alternatives that make any sense.

First of all Perry raised taxes in Texas. Perry did not reduce the Texas government. Yes, he was and still is a Democrat. (RINO) Perry tried to get forced innoculations for the HPV vaccine. Perry has confiscated private property to give to foreign countries for the Pan Texas corridor. Under Perry Texas was 49th in verbal SAT scores and in the 40s for most other school metrics. Perry fought to get free benefits for illegals. Pardon my spelling mistakes, just cannot understand this whole Perry thing that the Repubs are falling for. We need a real candidate to run against Obama not some sham like Perry!

Rick Perry

However Texas is:
1) 49th in teacher pay
2) 1st in the percentage of people over 25 without a high school diploma
3) 41st in high school graduation rate
4) 46th in SAT scores
5) 1st in percentage of uninsured children
6) 1st in percentage of population uninsured
7) 1st in percentage of non-elderly uninsured
8) 3rd in percentage of people living below the poverty level

Texas has created more minimum/non-living wage jobs than any other state.

So how many of those things you listed are linked to lower government spending and high levels of illegal immigration? Isn’t amazing that Texas has created all those jobs for uneducated workers? Compare it to California – a state that spends like crazy and has higher levels of unemployment.

Not raising the debt limit would likely have forced Obama to furlough significant numbers of federal workers. The 14th Amendment requires Obama to use the already sufficient tax revenues to pay all lawful debts including all bond and entitlement payments. Other lawful obligations involving federal contracts not fully covered by the above revenues could be repaid with the sale proceeds of national assets that are rapidly fungible (e.g., oil and gold reserves). Non-contractual payments such as military and government civilian wages would need to come from the insufficient remaining funds. The resulting loss of federal workers would:
1) reduce the union dues AFSCME could donate to Democrats
2) reduce the campaign contributions of these workers (who poll and vote about 90% Democrat)
3) attrite bureaucrats who impede private commercial activity through regulatory enforcement.

As a radical tea partier, there is much to like in the above. The House alone could have done this! This tea partier believes the public would sympathize with the tea partiers by November 6 2012 because they would quickly see the incredible benefits of the shut down of the overreaching bureaucracy combined with immediate and drastic reductions in the national debt.

It is simplistic but it has the advantage of being RIGHT. This T.E.A. person is in total agreement with you and I applaud the newly elected representatives from the 2010 elections who stood their ground and kept their word. On the other hand are those who compromised their word. Think about that… They compromised their word. Compromise doesn’t always mean giving something away you can afford to get something you want or need. Compromise can mean weaken and damage. I believe that is what has happened and once again the Republican party is compromised. Got that, not that they compromised but that they WERE compromised. Boehner proved once again that he has no stamina in a tough fight. All he had to do was LEAD instead of being compromised. All he had to do was stand firm and we would now have a de facto (Like that term) balanced budget. We wouldn’t need an amendment. We DON’T need an amendment. We need Republicans who will stand their ground and stick to the constitution.

Sometimes a contemptible compromise is necessary, as Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist #22: I quoted a key passage here: http://clarespark.com/2011/08/01/alexander-hamiltons-rational-voice-of-the-people/. We have a dreadful junto dictating policy and those of us who worry about fiscal responsibility and corruption must elect a proper president. Radosh is correct, and the nea-sayers here are unrealistic.

While I would certainly applaud a truly constitutionally bound President in the oval office, it would mean less than the frosting on the donut. The TEA party people are rightly upset that even if we win the senate and the white house and keep the house we will have won a wasteland. Smoldering and in rapid decay due to the scorched earth policies enacted in the last one hundred years in the name of progressivism.

Now just because the TEA Party people are upset, don’t take that to mean that they will just walk away in disgust. They are upset that it will take longer to rebuild our great nation, but rebuild it we will. I will not have my children and grandchildren left with this to fix.

The so-called Tea Party ‘conservatives’ have both hands in the federal governments honey pot and their lips securely on the federal governments teats sucking just like every other American of any other party.

For the states in which the Tea Party ‘conservatives’ claim as thir winns, not a single one of them are refusing to take any federal government handouts. In fact, they continue to beg for more federal handouts.

You really do have “Tea Party Derangement Syndrome”. And you have it real bad.

I am still waiting on you to explain where you think the federal government gets their money …Where did they get the money to hand out? There is a rumor floating around that they got it from taxpayers.

As for the absurdity of calling the Tea Partiers hypocrites: They paid into Social Security and Medicare all of their working lives, with the promise that they would receive the benefits when they retired. They are not asking for “handouts”. They fulfilled their part of the contract, and they expect the federal government to do the same. Those citizens who are just starting in the work force, or are quite a few years from retirement, will need to have some minor changes made in their contracts. This is another phony argument from you.

And no state is going to give back federal funds that the feds got from citizens of their state. The Tea Party has nothing to do with it, and you are just making a ridiculous argument. Again.

First, they ‘get’ their funds from a constitutional authority contained in Article I, Section 8. Additionally, the same constitution grants to the same congress the ‘welfare clause’ for which you have no working knowledge of. Staying with the constitution. The constitution again grants to congress the authority to ‘borrow’ monies on behalf of the United States…so not all the momnies spent by congress is sourced from tax revenues.

But lets continue! The constitution grants to the people, a process in which the will of the people shall be represented in the federal government. By the same token the constitution grants to congress to establish the rules for their bodies of congress. The congress by constitutional authority have established the rule of majority representation on behalf of the nation.

If you don’t like the constitution and congressional rules for governing the nation then mount your own army and get with it!

TTT- I suggest that you are the one who is ‘simplistic and superficial’. And off, yet again, on a diversionary red herring.

The issue was not about the authoritative process of obtaining money (which is what the Constitution is talking about). The issue is about the SOURCE of this money. And that’s the taxpayer. Even borrowed money must be repaid by..guess who…the taxpayer.

Ahh, TTT – yes, she does indeed have Tea Party Derangement Syndrome. But I think it’s possibly because TTT is, herself, either a govt worker or, I suspect, living off the government some other way.

Notice how, no matter what the argument, she always insists that everyone is, somehow, ‘living off the government’. Declares that private businesses, even, are ‘living off the government’. No – this is not only factually false but it is economically disastrous.

The function of a government is not to subsidize the population but to enable the population to be productive. That means that a govt should provide a stable fiscal currency, limited regulations to enable commerce but not smother it, common communication systems (roads, etc) and a secure environment. Period. Leave the people and free market alone.

The Tea Party’s axioms are reduced or limited government; reduced and audited govt spending, balanced and responsible budget, tax reform, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility. This is simply basic commonsense and good business economics.

Again, the role of government is not to be ‘in business’ but to stay out of business and enable the private sector to be ‘in business’.

TTT – who considers that economic theory is just ‘philosophy’ doesn’t understand this.

ETAB… Those who have never produced anything tangible or ran any enterprise of signficance in commerce are always the philosophers and self annointed experts of the world. You’ve NEVER produced anything tangible to benefit the world, nor have you ever ran any enterprise of signficant economic impact. Most of all you’ve NEVER ran a government, a state, a county or a muncipality.

Seems to me your coming around with self annointed intellectual superiority on economics is void of any creditibility. Same for the philosophers who write all the books you bury your nose in! If you and they had the ‘absolute’ economic blueprint for the world cornered, there would be no discussion concerning economics…but thats not so!

But hey! Keep on with all you presented philosophical fantasy. At least it serves to feed your ego.

TTT- I presume, in your description of ‘Those who…’ you are referring to Obama? It fits him quite accurately. He’s never produced or done anything tangible nor, as Krauthammer has pointed out, even run so much as a candy store.

As for your description fitting me – since you know nothing about me, and since, I presume, you want to deal with the issue rather than a red herring of ad hominem then your comments are trivial. Do you seriously think that unless one has governed a nation, that you cannot analyze economic processes!?.

But again, you don’t know economic theory. Hayek was an economic theorist; he won the Nobel for Economics. Not philosophy. Milton Friedman won the Nobel for economics. Not philosophy. And neither ran any governments. You don’t seem to know what philosophy deals with..and you certainly have no understanding, even a basic one, of economics.

Economic THEORY isn’t philosophy; it’s theory about economic processes. It’s unfortunate that you think that ‘theory’ = ‘philosophy’. Ah well. Do you think that someone who theorizes about physics is a ‘philosopher’ or a ‘physicist’? Try to understand: theory is not the same as philosophy.

Some Governors did refuse the Stimulus money. Some Governors did try to refuse the Federal money, but were overridden by their State legislatures.

I warned you to stay away from the Leftist sites, TT. They are dishonest. You have suddenly swung Left, having absorbed the propaganda. Clearly, you did not heed my advice. More’s the shame for having been warned.

Would you by chance be referring those governors who were politcally posturing to a segemt of the GOP at the time who were anti bail out of any kind any place involving the economic recovery act?

If you are my friend, I would invite you to re-investigate the facts. The governors who didn’t back away were as you stated, ‘overrode’ by their legislatures in consideration of constitutional and legislative budget mandates upon the states. Most states used the monies for budegtary mandates and very little to its intended purpose(s) thus, a significant cause of those dollars failing their economic recovery purpose. Turning down the monies also meant forfeiting other federal funds, funding budgetary commitments in the states.

I still stand behind my comment! If those Tea Party claimed states were seriously behind the populist political rhetoric, they would denounce and refuse ALL federal subsidies. One is either for eliminating federal government subsidies or you’re not. Nothing gray about it!

My point is simple. If they’re going to have all the bold tough rhetoric of anti federal government spending and handouts then, either stand behind the rhetoric or camp out. Theres no better place to start than with the states refusing all government handouts so everybody supporting the tough anti rhetoric can become educated in a nano second. Then move to private sector commerce, rejecting all government, federal and states handouts. By this time American’s will have learned somthing they now deny.

Yours is a strawman argument. You are setting an unreasonable standard. No whole State is Tea Party. Tea Partiers are only a slice of the population.

Most importantly, the Tea Party movement started in Apr ’09, mostly in response to the Stimulus. To demand that “Tea Party States” reject the funds before the Tea Party movement even existed is beyond ridiculous.

What happened to you, TT? It’s like a whole ‘nuther person has started posting under your name. The style and viewpoints are so very, very different. You are more combative, less reasonable, even shrill at times. It makes me sad to see it.

First you claim that my premise is wrong. But you don’t state what you believe my premise to be. It is entirely possible that you have misunderstood what my premise is. This is most likely, due to the ‘irrational’ rant you proceeded to put forth that “ALL TEA partiers” are they themselves guilty of your projected hatred. It may be in your best interest to back away from the internet and go outside and watch a few sunrises and possibly go to the park and enjoy the day watching the kids play on the playground. Maybe even go to the zoo.

[".....but rebuild it we will. I will not have my children and grandchildren left with this to fix."]

How do you propose to rebuild something when the overwhelming majority is partaking in tearing it down?

States can’t function anymore without federal subsidies. Private sector commerce can’t function today without federal subsidies For durn sure, the American people cannot maintain their lifestyles and existence today, without the direct and indirect ‘benefits’ of federal and state subsidies.

Now, if you or anybody have a viable solution for how to flip a switch and rebuild without sacrificing huge segment’S’ of the population…please do rise up and let the cat out of the bag.

Your right. If the nomination process gives a RINO (Romney), I am not walking away, I am going to the polls, and voting for every D member I can see. I can usually get most of my family members to vote the way I vote, so I am sure I can get a few additional votes for the Ds from there as well. If the country is going to go down, I am not getting any younger, and I would rather fight the civil war/pick up the pieces while I got enough health to do it.

Just saw a Rubio speech on the floor from tonight. If he is the great hope of the party, we are doomed to failure anyways. He actually said the welfare society is no less moral than the free capitalist society. If he cannot figure out the difference in value to individuals, groups and the whole society between these two choices, then he has no conservative core.

Where are the cuts to subsidies like ethanol – big oil – sugar – grants to study the sex lives of frogs etc etc?

ALL subsidies need to be examined and likely most of them should be shit-canned. Foreign aid – how many $s can we save by not funding countries that don’t even like us?

I’ve heard it said all my life – “you can’t buy friends”…..oh – but thats what subsidies are all about – aren’t they? Lets see if I got it right – big (name that corp) gives a campaign donation to Congress-critter XXX – and said critter does an Quid pro quo via an earmark – or bill that favors the company over consumers – but hey, nothing illegal in that – right?

I’m a strong supporter of the ideas espoused by the Tea Party – I fail to see where this was a win for us. I must be missing some piece of this puzzle that will give some clarity to this ‘victory’ the left is howling about. Could it be its all a put-on by them to fool us into thinking we really did have a good day? Or was this so middle of the road as deals go that nobody is happy with it?

You should step away from the beers instead of the keyboard. Alcohol is the spawn of Satan and can lead you to shoot at tax collectors…and miss. (to sort of quote the best SF author EVER! I’m kind of glad for him, that he’s not here to see what has become of us lately. Miss you Robert Heinlein.)

PLEASE PLEASE tell me when and where Congress has cut spending any time even if they have put it into LAW PLEASE or am i just INSANE when they call spending CUT”S that the automatic increases that they put in to every LAW they pas WE DID NOT get out 6% increase like we wanted we just got the 3% so in is a CUT ARE YOU AND THEY INSANE

If we won, then what did the Democrats actually lose? They got a spending increase. The cuts are not real cuts because they are only cuts in the projected spending increases – not actual cuts in expenditures. The Left got a super commission that will lead to tax increases or the crippling of our defense budget. Harry Reid told NPR that Boehner and McConnell agreed that “revenue increases” would be a part of any measure coming out of the commission. Mr. Obama gets to spend more money to buy more votes and Boehner and McConnell look like chumps for undermining their own legislation. Not to mention that we will face a loss in our credit rating because the whole debt ceiling compromise is a fraud.

I am not sure the republic can stand many more victories like this one.

I think Rush had it right when he said the Republicans are so used to being losers, they don’t know how to be/act like winners. Up until 1994, it had been 40 years since the GOP controlled Congress. By then they wee so used to being the minority, they don’t know how to be in control.

The only thing the Tea Party won was a circus act by Boehner. No wonder they are angry. I wish people would stop saying that the Tea Party won. Boehner should have stood up and said a big fat “NO” to the spoiled child in the WH. THEN the Tea Party would have won.

Republicans might have won, but not the Tea Party. Republicans want to make deals and compromise — in fact, without the Tea Party looking over their shoulders, Republicans would have just raised the debt limit — remember big government conservatism, whatever that means? I would rather we lived within our means and stopped spending our grandchildren’s money. Although I’m glad that massive debt is now an issue, we are still spending massive amounts of borrowed money–not much to celebrate yet. But I hope we can turn the Republican party around and then the country.

“Politically’ speaking, nobody will know who won or who lost until well after the 2012 elections.

The legislstion signed allows the government to move on. Within a week or so the fickle people will move on also. The politcal parties and all the media and pundit types will find something new to sensationalize for awhile.

A slower acceleration in to bankruptcy is still an increase in speed we go bankrupt. That is what we are unhappy about. Obama won. The Left is throwing a hissy fit because he was unable to put the peddle to the metal.

Nobody put “the brakes on” – this whole thing means that it’s just business as usual for Obama; he’s already proclaimed more spending and tax increases in keeping with his insane anti-American stateist vision. I bet nobody challenges his speech; nor will they point out that every point he made was a lie. This is truly scary now – a president claiming that this whole debacle was a milestone in American history and pontificating about spending as much as he can while doing it on the backs of the American people…..

Meanwhile – the MSM claims victory for the Tea Party!!! That puts the POTUS firmly in the camp of victim and actually attepts to set up control of the narrative so as to make what the POTUS is doing look legit in order to buy some time to get it done without opposition. The preponderance of lies and obfuscation in this is astounding.

The Stateist agenda lives, on and has just gained the momentum (and money) it needs for the final push …. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I see massive marches on DC ahead.

Debt ceiling! A Great deal of the USA’s money (taxes) goes to “Foreign Aid”. Some of this Foreign Aid goes to the enemies of the West and enemies of the USA. There’s a lot of money going to Arab countries (Oil & Islamic) countries, who every day in their daily prayers pray for the downfall of the USA. The funding of the United Nations – a gathering place for a majority of anti Western voting.
A sub-committee to discuss disarmament, being chaired by North Korea. The Human Rights Organization – a conglomerate of Human Rights abusers, etc., etc., and so forth. Does any one really look at where the American taxes are spent? I’m sure some foreign aid is necessary but to mention a few recipients – Pakistan (Al Quaida)- Egypt (Moslem Brotherhood) – Palestinian Authority (Hamas). If you look after the pennies ……… Maybe the pennies have also become unimportant.

Ron come on man let’s try and think before we write an article. If you honestly believe the tea party should be happy with what’s happened then you my friend are ok with the debt growing and for kicking it down the road. May I point out that Moody’s and credit ratiings said that even if we past this debt ceiling we would still most likely experience a down grade in our triple A rating. Also Ron do you think other congress will stick to this bill and cut spending later on I mean don’t you think it’s funny how we plan on spending first then later on we’ll decide to save. Oh by the way spending cuts in DC doesn’t really mean tax cuts just not spending everything at once but they will spend it.

Obama is still the Admiral of the American ship of state and may continue to be for some time. With his compliant, obedient, adulatory crew (population, media, bien-pensant envious “elite”, dependent vassals,and those who bend the knee to the high…)shall continue his attempts to commandeer America into the shoals, to ground or founder entirely. Caution is always prudent when dealing with people who have lied, lied and lied again to the audience. Who have twisted and bent laws/rules in gangster tactics to further their aims. Used their brownshirt troops in media, entertainment, law and education as object lesson/menace for any who object to their aims and methods. A matter of record, are these the usual behaviours of politicians in the American Democratic Republic. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

It is probable, having succeeded so well to this point, that Obama and his crew shall try, as far as possible, to replace the American Dream of the value, dignity and RIGHTS for the common man, with the “Dream of the Father”. Not the dream of Martin L. King, but of Joseph P.Kennedy for a royal Kennedy dynasty with all privileges that accompany. Trained “all his sons” to accomplish. As it cannot be achieved by the sons who sat at his foot as master, the NEW KENNEDY, surrogate will have to do. Today’s Camelot/royal court, out of Chicago 2008, is the totalitarian commissariate, “for the good of the people”.

It was to have happened at the election of 2000, the Millenium, exactly 40 years – in the wilderness? – from the election in Chicago in 1960 of the first Kennedy. Thwarted by “that vast right-wing conspiracy” it must now be hastened to its triumphant CHANGE of America from Constitutional Democratic Republic to International Commissariate. Hence the tactics to force Obama Care through as law. Obama’s logo a circle with the new sun/dawn /Messiah/Fuehrer .

Back to the future, the pre-1770s America as vassal to Westminster against which colonists spent blood and treasury to free themselves to become citizens with RIGHTS, as against subjects to a royal court. Overstated?…

Why is the tea party complaining? Because though a few might believe they just won a battle, (debt ceiling) by so doing, they have lost the war, by assuring Obama’s re-election, letting completely off of his own self-inflicted hook, and giving him a couple of trillion in stash money to buy votes etc.

He’s already talking “investing”. Reid is promising to raise (taxes)revenues, and the spending is rampant again and Obama’s buying votes and off the hook. Why is it the GOP is so unable to use a crisis to their advantage? I’ll tellyou why – they simply lack the courage to risk their comfy lifestyles, and unprincipled pragmatic RINOs just aren’t very disturbed by the aggressive Marxist takover of America.

This was another transparent set up to trap to force the gullible GOP into shutting down the government and making the hard choices that need to be made so the left can destroy them for being evil. The idea, as always is to scare America into believing the evil (now cutting an addicted government’s spending is terrorism, though Sarah a;one has cured that line) -tommorrow they will have another lie for the media to disseminate and the useful idiots to parrot.

Being right is not a cure for those that willingly do wrong. It takes moral and spiritual warfare and the risk of losing must become secondary. Palin knows this -that’s why both establishment parties loathe and fear her.

“It takes moral and spiritual warfare and the risk of losing must become secondary.”

Good points but . . . The culture is predominately therapeutic/victim, not honor/shame. Only when Hugh Hefner recants his life of satyrism and James Bond calls Pussy Galore a whore will women be given permission to value their honor (chastity) and the honor of their men. Maybe this is happening but I haven’t seen any change yet. Women are in economic competition with men and government programs that reward gender bias increase dependency and phony victimization. Being cool (sluttish) trumps being square.

Culture is what’s left over after you forgot what you tried to learn. – Ezra Pound

“Why are the supporters of Rand Paul and some in the Tea Party so upset?” Because they love their country. They want the USA to survive as a nation. Increasing government debt when the existing debt cannot be repaid does not help the nation. Why is the Left so angry? Because Leftism is a lazy dishonest method of taking political power, and the deal frustrates the Left from rewarding their supporters and taking money from their opponent’s supporters. All addicts show resentment when their addiction is frustrated. All patriots show grief when their nation suffers and cannot solve its problems.

“So Lowry concludes that “the nation’s debate has fundamentally shifted onto the ground of what kinds of spending to cut, and how fast and far. Keynes would be appalled, but as even Dick Durbin realizes, he’s dead and gone.”

Well, not so fast. This whole “debt agreement” actually does nothing to reduce the debt. It may cut some money from our budget, but that is only to cover the debt increase, not what we’ve already spent. Only by having conservatives controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives can real changes be made. And, given what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have done to this nation, I think the American public will be ready for a change in 2012. But at least we are talking about reducing the size of government and making big budget cuts. But, do you know when I’ll know when conservatives have really won the war? When PBS, NPR, ACORN (and all its subsidiaries), and the National Council on the Arts lose all their funding. Then I’ll know we’ve won.

Perhaps conservatives of all stripes should agree to support tax increases on the wealthy as a solution that ALL sides can agree upon. If every new tax dollar garnered under this program was assigned to retire the US debt, interest charges against the decreasing federal debt would fall, thus freeing up limited dollars for maintaining other government programs. If NO ADDITIONAL money that was gained by the new taxation would be made available for growing government, government would have to learn to live within its means. The money government gained through reduced interest payments would have to be husbanded carefully by not handing out sinecures and pay raises to public employees and reducing new and costly legislation, thus making private employment relatively more attractive. The anti-business aspect of collecting more private money through taxation could ameliorated by reducing regulations that currently encumber business activities. As the debt sunsets, so would the new taxes that reduced the interest burden. Emergencies such as natural disasters could be paid for through the issuance of bonds on a case-by-case basis – Katrina bonds, Afghanistan bonds, etc. This would have the effect of limiting expenditures to our ability to pay for new ventures as a society. All we need is some grit to make this work. As the debt dropped, confidence in America would be regained.

A related point, understood only by mathematicians and those who listen to their warnings, is that without modification of our current spending system, over time our debt will inexorably approach infinity. The Cloward-Piven strategy works with or without revolutionary memes and rioting in the streets, just a little slower.

Finally! A few folks of the TeaParty-GOP have their heads screwed on! When you lack the revenue to feed your family most responsible earners will see any form available of additional revenue…be it another jobs or turning a hobby into additional revenue.

If your house burns down ‘somebody’….somebody, has to come up with the revenue to rebuild so your family doesn’t become homeless.

Likwise, if you don’t manage your spending and debt responsibly and you start getting colection and court threats, you have two options! Come up with more revenue or default and declare bankruptcy.

The Tea Party folks are using some demented ‘political’ strategy that does NOTHING to solve and liquidate the outstanding debt of trillions. Let me really confuse those folks! Spending is NOT whats sinking the nation. NOT paying its outstanding debt from miscalculated or irresponsible spending is whats sinking the nation.

So, if you’re American ‘patriots’ as so many claim, pony up the additional revenue to pay down ‘your’ debt and avoid bankruptcy. IF YOU’RE AN INCOME EARNER, PAY YOUR TAX ‘RATE’ FOR A FEW YEARS AND PAY DOWN YOUR DEBT.

Jerry! You have the right idea! The additiional tax revenue (not tax rate hike) should be earmarked by legislation to pay down the ‘PRINCIPAL’ of debt and nothing else. Means test social security and Medicare. Reduce ALL 1,700 + government subsidies by 15%. Legislate ALL forms of social and defense programs corruption and fraud to be high felonies and set a minimum punishment of 25 years of confinement per charge upon conviction.

May not be perfect but, at least it’s something real in substance and significant in benefit to addressing the nations debt created by the people.

TTT- you don’t understand economics. You’ve declared previously that you consider economic theory to be ‘philosophy’ – heh, would that mean that all Economics Departments in all universities should be renamed ‘Philosophy Department’? And should the Nobel prize for Economics really by the Nobel prize for philosophy?

First – and I know that you dislike the Tea Party, but their policies are not demented (kindly provide evidence). They are commonsense: limited government, lower taxes, balanced budget. What the heck is demented about that?

Of course spending is the key problem! If the govt, and the govt gets its money only from the taxpayer, spends above a certain ratio of the GDP, then, it is not leaving enough INVESTMENT money in the hands of private enterprise (and private business is the sole source of wealth production)…and this reduces the PRODUCTION of wealth and thus, the amount of wealth available for CONSUMPTION.

You don’t understand this economic triad: investment, production, consumption.
Paying down the debt won’t deal with the critical problem of reducing taxation NOW to allow for INVESTMENT. What paying off the debt is about is the long term effect on taxation and investment. If you don’t pay it off, then, you are depriving FUTURE generations of investment money as their taxes will all go for interest…rather than Consumption purposes.

You are also ignoring WHO is determining how tax money is spent. Ever heard of Congress and the Executive? FDR, LBJ and Obama? They are all big, big, big socialist spenders of your money.

I suggest, TTT, that you think about basic economic theory..and no, it’s not found in the philosophy dept; it’s found in the economics dept.

Those who have never produced anything tangible or ran any enterprise of signficance in commerce are always the philosophers and self annointed experts of the world. You’ve NEVER produced anything tangible to benefit the world, nor have you ever ran any enterprise of signficant economic impact. Most of all you’ve NEVER ran a government, a state, a county or a muncipality.

Seems to me your coming around with self annointed intellectual superiority on economics is void of any creditibility. Same for the philosophers who write all the books you bury your nose in! If you and they had the ‘absolute’ economic blueprint for the world cornered, there would be no discussion concerning economics…but thats not so!

But hey! Keep on with all you presented philosophical fantasy. At least it serves to feed your ego.

Imagining that new taxes will be wisely spent is fantasy-land. Maybe if it had happened once in the last 50 years, it would be believable.

As you know if you think about it for even a minute, new federal taxes simply create more destructive governement spending. Always, always, always.

Maybe, at some time in the distant future, a transcendant conservative majority might be able to actually use new tax revenue for a specific purpose. I think it will take 20 or more years of unyielding leadership integrity for the American people to accept it. In other words, it’s impossible.

Everybody is right, but something must be done. By opening the “Social Security lock box” for general revenue, the Congress was just so irresponsible that perhaps they will not repeat the same error. Perhaps they would use the new tax money ONLY to pay off the debt.

And for a long time before that, I had been a person who argued that most politicians have integrity and that the criticism of them is unfounded.

Now my default position is that all politicians are master criminals. Occasionally, I hear one who I think is honest, but even then, I never fall totally under their spell. They simply spend their entire lives learning how to manipulate people. Even the few I agree with have the same skills. I just don’t fully trust any of them.

The center of the democrats was the moderates who governed on behalf of the nation.

The far right fringe of the GOP are the Religious Right/Christian Coailition now rebranded as the Tea Party.

The center of the GOP was the moderates who governed on behalf of the nation.

The Libertarian/Anarchists of the GOP are a breed unto their own. Historically, they are 180 degrees opposite the socialist-progressive even as repackaged today. They are also historically 180 degrees opposite the GOP capitalists. They are also 180 degrees opposite any constitution. They are also 180 degrees opposite any forms of government and government regulations. They are 180 degress opposite any forms of taxation….summed up they against any form of government….to name a few.

When they, the anarchists, rebranded and repackaged themselves in 1976, as Libertarians, yes, 1976 the essentially ignored component of the 60′s and 70′s ‘revolution’, they felt that strategically, they were more aligned with certain ideologies of the GOP that could benefit their cause(s). So they drew up a platform of alliance issues to the GOP….and now they’re established as part of the GOP.

The Libertarians play the GOP and the Tea Party like an ‘E’ string just as this Libertarian site does. This has been their first opportunity since ’76 to really rise up so to speak and ‘radicalize alliances’ to their cause(s) and their war against their historical enemies; socialism, government, government taxation and government regulations. Most folks of the GOP today, haven’t a clue whats going on and they (Libertarians) hope to keep it like that.

The Tea Party is their ‘perfect host’ and they’re reveling right now [behind] the Tea Party. If you monitor several of the underground anarchists groups in their varied forms and activist causes around the world, they are joining [together] in their revelry.

We’ve come a long ways
In the liberal imagination
From being a phony astroturf movement,
Of redneck racist bigots,
To being Taliban terrorists
Plotting economic Armageddon.
You see tea baggers
There’s such a thing as progress.
Now I’ll take a bite
From my evil Satan Sandwich.

From suicidal lunacy to severely deranged. It’s an improvement. The patient went from last rights to grave danger.

The small c communists want to drive a stake through the heart of capitalism. Nancy Pelosi gets to put three people on a committee…who can trade Medicare for wiping out the Pentagon. Bill Ayers has been trying to find a way to kill of 25 million elderly, white, rock-ribbed Republican voters for decades…AND…shred the military. Nancy Pelosi has three swings at the bat to both in one fell swoop. And we gave her the lumber to

We cut one half of one percent of our spending addiction and raised the debt ceiling by over two trillion dollars. Today’s debt ceiling is tomorrows debt floor. We are in a spending elevator in a haunted house, the cables are all frayed and we are due for a nasty, ghoulish fall.

EVERY move made by Frank/Dodd/Pelosi/Obama since the far left, small c communist, Soros-led Democratic Shadow Party took control of the government, has been a slow, steady small c communist creep.

We just handed them a weapon to finish us off.

Who wouldn’t be happy about that?

The conversation may have been changed, but when you hit your knees tonight…you might want to plead that Nancy Pelosi, Bill Ayers and George Soros don’t have the last word.

“But the freshmen tell a different story of how they came to support the bill, one born out of listening sessions with leadership, an evolution in understanding the economic consequences of a default and opportunities to vote their priorities on the House floor. And, they say, their leadership was able to make them feel enough like valued members that when the time for tough votes came, they were ready to be team players in lending their support.

“I think increasingly we feel a part of a body,” says Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.), a freshman ophthalmologist with no prior political experience who defeated a Democrat in a swing district last year. “You don’t know what you don’t know until you arrive here in the Capitol.”

“The conversations about the debt ceiling started when they first came to Washington for orientation last November, and they’ve continued throughout the year—at the leadership table, where the freshmen were represented by Reps. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, in weekly class meetings with Speaker John Boehner and regular listening sessions with Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy. In the listening sessions, McCarthy methodically collected deficit reduction ideas from the rank-and-file, gauging their interest among the conference and often gently demonstrating that the support didn’t exist.”

And from VoxPopoli:

“The Republican establishment has at least 30 years of experience in breaking the freshmen to heel. They did it en masse in 1994 and they’ve done it again now. This is why it is not merely stupid, but by Einstein’s metric, insane, to attempt to change anything by electing Republicans. The Tea Party has to break away and go third party if it is to have any chance at all at reducing government spending.”

I don’t understand what was accomplished by the conservatives. If looks to me like they bent over, grabed their ankles and said”give me another, sir”. The end result of all the bickering is an increase in spending and a promise to spend less over 10 years, note that it is chump change on a yearly basis. The left is mad because they didn’t get a tax and the ability to totally ruin any ecomony left in the US.

No, it’s not the money that has the lefties so mad! It is the realization that they just missed their last opportunity to avoid disaster in next year’s election. Had the Tea Partiers folded and had there been ANY tax increases, then every Republican candidate would have had a primary opponent AND, probably, a third party candidate on the ballot. That would have meant enough dem wins to hold some sort of line in the next Congress.
Now, Obama’s pimps and the big money guys on the left must realize that, if they want to avoid EVERYTHING getting flushed, they should consider another candidate for next year. Next year will mean the end of the democrats and, to a very large extent, it will be by their own hands.

Rom R misses or ignores the import of the Lowry quote, “of at least appearing to cut”. Especially the cuts in the future, which might as well be a hundred years out.
I guess appearances really are everything. Also Ron puts too much credence into the chagrin of leftists. Of course they are upset, they’re fanatics and hate to give up a U.S. dime. Their fanaticism is not a reason to feel Normal People got something valuable from this mess of a deal.

Congratulations, randian-neocon-teabag freaks. you won this battle. I could be wrong, but I do not think your side will win the war.

Cutting the defense budget so that we have more of a Ron Paul/Pat Buchanan/Stephen Walt America First foreign policy and letting the tax rates go back to where they were in the 1990s is not going to hurt you one bit more than you deserve to be hurt. Here’s hoping this will happen whether you fools want it or not in the next year or two. The alternative is electing Romney, repealing health care, continuing to fight neocon wars and anti-Islamist crusades that cost trillions but do nothing to ensure our real security, and then watching as the bills come due and senior citizens (white, Republican-leaning ones) come after you with pitchforks when you try to turn their Medicare into a stingy voucher program.

“To raise legitimate questions about the quagmire our nation is falling into by spending more than it has is evidently something that cannot be allowed.”

Oh, is that what the Right did, “raise legitimate questions”? It looked like they were threatening the country with default and refusing to compromise. The Tea Party may have won this round, but they’ve shown the voters how absolutely nuts the Right has become.

You are correct, Mr Radosh that the Tea Party won this skirmish, albeit a small one, but you are wrong in critizing the talk radio guys for keeping the pressure on.

Given the spectrum of possible outcomes, what happened is certainly positive, but given the spectrm of what needs to happen, the outcome is far far short of what the goal has to be. That is why Hannity, Levin, Rand Paul, et al have not backed down in the least from their principle-based stands. And rightly so. If they do, then the Tea Party might relax, which would be a disaster.

What I was worried about was Levin, who is so principled and influential that I was worried he would make the conditions for the only possible success, a small one, impossible. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. I also suspect that in private Levin and all the rest admit that the Tea Party was successful, but add that it is only a small first step. Even so, every small success lays the foundation for the ultimate success.

Obama won his slush money – and that’s what he’ll use the debt ceiling for – to take him over his re-election. And that’s all he cares about; his re-election; he has no interest in America or Americans.
Watch him – he’ll try to bribe and offer ‘special assistance’ to his wavering support groups: the civil service unions, ethnic groups – black and hispanic; those on social security.

But his attempt to destroy the Tea Party by actually moving the US into default – and he would have allowed it – failed.

Obama tried; he again and again, refused to consider the GOP/TP plans, including Ryan’s budget, the Cut/Cap and Balance and Boehner’s plan. Obama wanted that default.
Then, Obama also tried his misinformation-manipulative strategy, using fear-mongering, to tell his base of social security that their checks wouldn’t come..because of the GOP/TP. Blatant lie; monthly tax income more than covers the debt interest and all entitlements; it doesn’t cover other spending.

But Obama’s key agenda over these past months was to set up the GOP/TP to take the fall for his failed economic policies. He wanted to go into the election campaign, blaming everything..on the GOP/TP. He’s still going to try to do it! I hear that he’s already blaming the slow economy on the ‘debt crisis’.
But HE created it!!!! He could have dealt with it a year ago! He deliberately created it as a political tactic!

A positive result, in addition, is that these issues – wild irresponsible govt spending, funding of electoral bases by the taxpayer, irresponsible debt – are now in the public eye when they were not so before. That’s a benefit, and the Tea Party and GOP have to maintain this focus…and fault Obama for his failures and his arrogant indifference to the well-being of America.

My feeling about it is that the marxists are a huge force that has crested and is crashing down a mountain.

The Tea Party is a force that is rapidly gaining strength and is rushing up the mountain.

The guys rushing down the mountain have the edge, so we can’t rest for even a second.

In addition, the guys rushing down the mountains are pros. They have devoted their lives to stealing, lying, twisting the truth, corrupting the system. Obama is a 24×7 charlatan, who hasn’t been anything but that from childhood. This is what they are. But all of the Tea Partiers have had lives separate from manipulating the system for personal gain. We don’t understand, and for some, can’t even believe what these professional thugs are capable of. It’s energizing to get victories such as the Debt Ceiling and the 2010 election, but the other side is like the forces of Ho Chi Min. They know where the tunnels are, and are willing to do anything to win.

The war really is a lot like the Revolutionary war. We’ve got rifles the guy the next barn over cranks out in his spare time and are shooting from the shadows. They are a professional mercenary army that has never lost a significant battle before, have an unlimited treasury, and are totallly amoral.

Dick Morris thinks it will be a landslide. I wish I were as confident.

You must have thought you dodged a political bullet by avoiding the alleged “default”. You will not fully appreciate this yet, but your political career is over; your legacy, sadly, will be forever stained with your capitulation at a critical juncture in the battle to save this republic.

Dan Anderson
(Sent to the Speaker today)

Mr. Radosh,

Your article merely represents common thought inside the beltway. As reality sets in, the real damage from the capitulation by Boehner et al will become ever more apparent.

The debt-ceiling battle seems to be the financial equivalent of the battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line.) The battle was a bloody shambles that yielded very little strategic advantage for the North. (Except for repulsing Lee’s first invasion of the North.) It is generally agreed that Union General George B. McClellan fought it badly on a tactical level. (Robert E. Lee was always lucky with his opponents – At least until late in 1863.) However it was just enough of a Northern victory that Abraham Lincoln felt strong enough to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and shift the center of the war from a “War for the Union” to a “War Against Slavery.” This doomed the possibility of French or British recognition of the Confederacy and made the Civil War into a moral crusade.

That seems the real importance of the debt-ceiling brawl. It was badly fought by both sides and the result doesn’t seem like much. However maybe, just maybe, it has finally and fundamentally shifted the our view ont he role of government. People across the political spectrum are finally taking our debt crisis seriously and realize that the government can’t afford to solve every social problem. It is now a real issue that occupies the center of the poltical stage in a way that even health care reform could not. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I hope not.

“If that is the case, why is the Left united in its scathing denunciation of the president for totally capitulating to the Tea Party…”

Because, they aren’t going to be satisied until America is 100% communist, that’s why. They’re mad because socialism isn’t advancing FAST enough, not because it was rolled back.

Our side lost.

Pure and simple.

Doesn’t bother me too much, because I never thought the Tea Party had even the slightest chance of winning at the ballot box, anyway (though, I had hoped we could, I didn’t expect we would).

The only way we’re ever going to win is if we start refusing to cooperate with the leftist government, and to do what the original Tea Party did…refuse to pay taxes, and that’s going to mean violence for sure, somewhere down the road.

The Tea party DID win the fight. It was not a resounding victory, just a marginal one. The Right is upset, some even outraged, but the left is howling mad!

The reason the Tea Partiers are upset, is that their expectations were way too high, unrealistic. Proper change is supposed to happen somewhat gradually in government, not radically. The Founders set it up that way, so that we would be a Republic, not a Democracy subject to the fickle winds of the public mood. What the Left has wrought in several decades is not going to be undone in 7 months. Get a grip.

We are heading in the wrong direction. The 2010 elections said to turn it around. So, we have to lessen the pressure on the accelerator. Then remove the foot. Hit the brakes… slowly. Slow down. Shift gears. Eventually, we will get it stopped. Jamming on the brakes might work out, or it could lead to a big accident. Shutting down the government could have worked out, but it could have backfired and undone all our gains.

The victory was not that we decreased spending particularly noticeably. The victory is we put some of the Leftist goals and rhetoric into the trash. We are beating their defense and driving them back. “Increased revenue”. Shared sacrifice”. MediScare. “Balanced approach”. “Holding the country hostage”. The list goes on of all their tactics, and it all failed. They had to yield to cutting spending and no tax-rate hikes.

Now we move to the argument about what gets cut, not whether to cut. We have all the momentum, and they are not stopping us. And they know it. That’s why they are howling mad.

“Now that the Senate has passed the rise in the debt ceiling, and the liberals and left wing are yelling about betrayal and capitulation of the Obama administration to the Tea Party, why are so many Tea Party representatives and conservative talk show hosts so unhappy?”

Ron this is just a smoke screen of lies from the media and now you too. The government just gave itself permission to keep running the money presses. Obama is happy, he can keep redistributing other peoples money and look good for the election, the commies are happy, the country is going to collapse financially and they can rebuilt it to look like China or Russia only with more dead people, they think (they are killers at heart), the rino’s are happy because they share the same deception as the former, they just don’t agree with communists about God although they want all power and control in their hands, but the majority of the American people are not happy at all for the reasons just stated.

“Why are so many Tea Party representatives and conservative talk show hosts so unhappy?” What – is that supposed to be a serious question? The reason they’re unhappy is because THERE ARE NO SPENDING CUTS. There are only cuts to the baseline, ie, to the locked-in spending increases.

If federal agency XYZ has a budget of $50 billion this year and $45 billion next year then THAT would be a cut. If the agency’s budget goes from $50 billion to $53 billion (instead of $55 billion as planned) that IS NOT a cut.

From a debt of ~$14T in 2011 to a debt of ~$26T in 2021 (instead of the doubling ~$28T they wanted) is not a cut. It is a cut IN THE RATE OF GROWTH OF GOV’T SPENDING. That is all.

The bill also “deems” the budget for 2012 & 2013 as passed. So 0bumbler will have gone through the 4 years of his Reign without having to pass a budget at all. The entire Congress has abrogated their oaths and duties. They should be impeached. All of them. Every last one.

I do not expect to have a real election next year. The GoP will be brow beaten into choosing someone for Baraq to defeat. A ‘Defeator’ a la Harry Potter.

“Treasury borrowing jumped Tuesday, the data showed, immediately after President Barack Obama signed into law an increase in the debt ceiling as the country’s spending commitments reached a breaking point and it threatened to default on its debt.”

“The new borrowing took total public debt to $14.58 trillion, over end-2010 GDP of $14.53 trillion, and putting it in a league with highly indebted countries like Italy and Belgium.”

The word theory as it is used in English is a technical term from…… Ancient Greek philosophy…… meaning “a looking at, viewing, beholding”, and refers to [contemplation or speculation], as opposed to action. Heck lets add [hypothetical] since its also referred to.

In everyday language a theory means a [hunch or speculation]. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of [nature] supported by facts gathered over time.

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the [natural world], based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and [experiment].

NATURAL WORLD – the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities.

the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization.

the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals, or rivers.

Pretty much sums up all your economic expertise! Contemplation, speculation and hypothetical!

Now I know you’ll be tempted to retort with a long…very long disseration on the ever lasting squabble between theorists and philosophers…but save your fingers or pasting.

ETAB…["The issue was not about the authoritative process of obtaining money (which is what the Constitution is talking about). The issue is about the SOURCE of this money. And that’s the taxpayer. Even borrowed money must be repaid by..guess who…the taxpayer."]

If you don’t like the constitutional authorities given to congress to collect taxes from the people, then by all means man up even if it means a strapon and don’t pay any more taxes to the government and suffer the consequences of your conviction.

If the states, private sector commerce and the people could remotely survive without federal and state governments handouts, taxes would hardly be the conversation. But thats not the reality of today! As a trained theorist ‘observer/speculator’ you are sorely short of being proficient.

Otherwise, find a way to end the nations addiction to government handouts that doesn’t sacrifice huge segment’S’ of the population and completely collapse the nation. Everybody is long on populist ‘political’ rhetoric and personalized assassinations and sorely short on viable solutions…you included!

Everybody demanded Champagne and fiddlers for their multi decades dance party and now nobody wants to pay for the champagne and the durn fiddlers. I’m betting thats why the Chinese are now seriously considering not buying anymore American IOU certificates and looking towards the Euro rather than the USD! Russia has already switched to the Euro. The Gulf Arabs along with China, Russia, Japan, Brazil and France have already met in late 2009 to make plans to switch to the Euro and other currencies over the USD…especially to back oil. I only bring this up since how the major plays of the world view ‘American’s’ and it’s government has real meaning and consequences. They no longer revere us or have confidence in us or our USD. For certain, as evidenced from their comments, they give little to no weight to any of the political rhetoric of either politcal party and their followers. They see the nation and government as dysfunctional and most probably beyond the point of return.

Republican touted no new tax increase in this deal. Second Powerpoint slide of Speaker John Boehner: NO TAX HIKES (READ MY LIP) to sell his debt ceiling plan. Moment after debt ceiling raised, Harry Reid came out blazing and swinging: Tax increase to come in phase-2 super committee.

A new reality: US borrowing tops 100% of GDP: Treasury. DRUDGE REPORT

US debt shot up $238 billion to reach 100 percent of gross domestic project after the government’s debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday. The new borrowing took total public debt to $14.58 trillion, over end-2010 GDP of $14.53 trillion, and putting it in a league with highly indebted countries like Italy and Belgium.

["What happened to you, TT? It’s like a whole ‘nuther person has started posting under your name. The style and viewpoints are so very, very different. You are more combative, less reasonable, even shrill at times. It makes me sad to see it."]

I left you a post up above. Read it an you’ll understand in part the change.

Next! I separate from the arrogant self ordained, pompous intellectuals who believe they have answers to everything but are void of being recognized anywhere as having governed or applied their know it all with any measured successes….but in an internet enviornment akin to a crackhouse where the meet to get their next ego fix.

Lastly! I have NO tolerance for hypocrits and assassins. People who gather to cast personalized attacks against those who share a more
politically ‘independent and holistic view’ of the issues. I have little tolerance for those who consume their time reguritating populist, simplistic and superficial political rhetotic and seemingly haven’t the capacity to have mature adult dialogue for viable solutions independent of radicalized politics.

In short! The character and demeanor of far to many on here representing the Tea Party of today, including some very immature zealot contributing bloggers, is NOT my cup of tea. But, I’ll carry on in my efforts, as there is far more traffic who drops by to monitor this site than there are bloggers and commentors.

As far as I understand it, this is the TTThomas point nobody seems to pay attention to:

“Everybody demanded Champagne and fiddlers for their multi decades dance party and now nobody wants to pay for the champagne and the durn fiddlers”

ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

For so many years you have had a welfare state (social security, medicare, mae/macs etc) because people didnt want to recognize the built-in evil in those things. Now the party is over, you gave up long ago the right to dispose of your money to the Government, so now all the consequences are at the doors (debt, debt, debt).

T.T.Thomas, here I am not sure if I am getting it right, but you say, therefore: time to pay for it! Or, in other words, accept the guilt and accept the consequences, including the rise of the taxes and all the economic downfalls with it.

Well, while this is fair, it is justice, I have to agree still with pro-reason: “Imagining that new taxes will be wisely spent is fantasy-land. Maybe if it had happened once in the last 50 years, it would be believable”.

Two wrongs doesnt make a right: people were wrong to concede to Goverment to spend beyond its legitime functions, now we have to pay. But it is wrong to believe that NOW they will behave nicely: “new federal taxes simply create more destructive governement spending. Always, always, always”. This is true since is what’s observed in the Reality.

Therefore, I still think the solution pass thru breaking this vicious circle. We should pay for our sins, but we gotta stop the additional spending.

Also, we should move beyond rethorics here and start practical proposals to this end. As TTThomas says: “end all the fed subsidies!” seems a good start to me.